Marked for Hans Vertonghen
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 39. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Market7 Sep 2026
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Club Brugge heard it as anything else.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Joel Ordóñez was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Germán Berterame falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
The terraces7 Sep 2026
At 22 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Match5 Sep 2026
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Hans Vertonghen. 1‑0 against KV Kortrijk, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
Ninety minutes of Hans Vertonghen at his very best
Marked 8.06. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Club Brugge.
Squad7 Sep 2026
A place in the month's best eleven for Simon Mignolet
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Simon Mignolet has come out of that comparison in the side, and Club Brugge have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
Squad7 Sep 2026
“I did not come here to warm up in front of people.” He is out of contract eventually, he is old enough to count the weeks, and Club Brugge will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 38. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Match26 Aug 2026
Cup ties wait for somebody to seize them, and Cisse Sandra obliged against Mouscron. 4‑1 on the night, and the name in the next round’s hat is Club Brugge.
Market31 Aug 2026
The bid was some way short and Club Brugge did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
No sign of nerves from Stan Naert at 18 — 8.68
The hardest thing about being 18 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Stan Naert did not need any: 8.68, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Squad31 Aug 2026
A move Hans Vertonghen would have made for nothing
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Hans Vertonghen is living that version at Club Brugge, and it tends to show in the first month.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Robert Berić, 35, rolls back the years — 7.87
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.87 at 35, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Joel Ordóñez in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Club Brugge this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market31 Aug 2026
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Carlos Forbs wants continental football; whether Club Brugge can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Match29 Aug 2026
Whatever happens, Club Brugge do not lose
6 games unbeaten now. Some were earned and some were survived, but a habit is forming — and habits are the hardest thing in football to play against.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 30. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad17 Aug 2026
The match ball belongs to Yannick Fellaini, whose 3 goals turned a difficult afternoon into a procession.
Market17 Aug 2026
Lokeren say no — this time
The offer from Parma for Hans Vertonghen was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Squad17 Aug 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Lokeren this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Lois Boyata falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Match15 Aug 2026
Three points for Lokeren, 3‑1 the final word against Mouscron in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Squad17 Aug 2026
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
The terraces17 Aug 2026
At 23 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.25, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 41. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Market10 Aug 2026
Lokeren say no — this time
The offer from Anderlecht for Baixinho was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Squad10 Aug 2026
“The easiest signature of my career.” Yannick Fellaini and Lokeren agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad10 Aug 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Lokeren this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match8 Aug 2026
KV Kortrijk made Lokeren work for it, but the scoreboard read 2‑1 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Pedro Xavier gets it from the manager
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
The terraces10 Aug 2026
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Yannick Fellaini has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
Kevin Batshuayi was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.29. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Squad10 Aug 2026
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Lokeren, and both men came out saying it was fine.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 36. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.58, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Market3 Aug 2026
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Market3 Aug 2026
The interest is real enough to have reached print. Lokeren have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Market3 Aug 2026
Pedro Xavier wants to know where this is going
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Lokeren hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Market3 Aug 2026
Baixinho wants European nights
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Baixinho in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Lokeren this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Words at Lokeren training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Thomas Breton is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Match1 Aug 2026
2‑3 to KV Oostende, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.